What are you reading?

[The JD]

I just finished Let's Pretend This Never Happened (A Mostly True Memoir). There were certainly some laugh-out-loud phrases and anectdotes, but overall, I found it lacking. Jenny Lawson is best known as a blogger ("The Bloggess") who writes snarky and self-referential posts about being caught in (and creating) embarrassing social situations. This sounds like the perfect reading material for a David Sedaris enthusiast (me), but Lawson's snippy blog-style writing just doesn't translate to a longer work. I never really got engrossed in the tales of her manic life; instead, it was more like a stand-up comedy act, complete with SENTENCES IN ALL CAPS where she's actually screaming the one-liners from the page. She constantly got detoured off the main narrative, then made detours off the detours... I felt like I needed a flow chart to keep up.

If you love her blog, you'll probably love her book... but the reason the blog-style of writing works for blogs is because they're meant to be short and irreverent, and it's okay to throw in non sequiturs because each post is less than 500 words. But for a 300 page memoir? Time to modify the writing style.

** Warning: Shameless self-promotion to follow**

Now I'm reading Deaf American Prose: 1980 - 2010 (Gallaudet Deaf Literature Series), a collection of essays by Deaf and Hard of Hearing authors. It's a terrific anthology, though I admit I'm biased since I'm one of the authors.